Okay, I realize that this is a bit of a long shot considering the age of the device, but just hear me out and if you have any suggestions, I'd like to hear them. If you don't wanna read the steps I've taken so far just scroll to the bottom.

The ED64 is of the first revision, bought from Stoneage gamer back in 2011. The sticker on the back says its number 0011, so it's an early one. I pretty much bought it as soon as it became available. I dutifully upgraded its firmware and software OS as new ones became available, all the way up until 1.29, which is the last available for the first ED64. I even used a Jtag to upgrade the firmware, no idea what I was doing, but it worked and that was two or three years ago. What I'm getting at is that it was completely up to date as a v1 ED64 could get and it worked fine. I didn't use any custom OS or wallpapers so there is nothing out of the ordinary.

Anyway I was messing with SD cards, why? If you really wanna know I have a Wii that was sitting untouched for a while, it had a 2GB card in it and I figured, that the 2GB card would be better in the ED64 and the 8GB card in the ED64 would be better in the Wii. I put both in my computer, dumped the contents on my hard drive. Formatted the cards, FAT32 like usual and swapped contents. (The Wii worked just fine. Upgraded the Hombrew channel from 1.10 to 1.12 and got upgraded versions of some emulators for whatever that was worth.)

The ED64 on the other hand was not happy....if it was alive I would have said it was throwing a hissy fit about having a lower capacity SD card (How dare zstandig give that damned Wii, my card... )

Now, everything was in that 2GB, the directory structure, everything the same except for the card itself (the 8GB is SDHC and the 2GB is regular SD I guess). When I turned it on, I got an old looking menu, like what the ED64's GUI looked like in 2011 before the snazzy wallpaper came about. It told me that OS64.v64 was not there and that I should get it and put it in a directory called ED64.

So....I took the card reformatted it, I did a full format this time instead of a quick one, and checked for errors. Windows said it was fine. I put everything back on it. I downloaded a fresh copy of OS64.v64 (in case the old one was corrupted or something) in the 1.29 directory of the ED64 website and put it in my ED64.

Same result.

So....at this point I decided that switching the SD cards was a stupid idea and I had better put everything back the way it was because some extra space in the Wii was not worth this aggravation. So I put the ED64 stuff back on the 8GB card, the Wii stuff back on the 2GB card. (Wii and the HBC work fine on the 2GB card ).

And....same thing...OS64.v64 not found.

So I take the SD card, format it again, FAT32, no label. Put the ROM folders back in and....

Now nothing appears on the Screen.....the ED64 flashes the usual red lights as if it is working.

dang...

Well at this point I did not want to think about having a broken ED64, it was expensive and I like it. So I did the usual trouble shooting.

-Do I have the right TV/Video channel? yeah...-Unplug and replug power and A/V cables, yeah they're fine.-Re-seat the expansion pak, yep it's in there just fine.-Take out the S-Video and try Composite, same result, slight green tint on the screen. Changing TV/Video channel has no impact.-Take out the ED64 and inspect for dust in N64 and ED64, none visible, gave a burst of compressed air anyway.-Take out SD card and check inside the ED64, no obstructions.-Soak a cotton swab in rubbing alcohol swab ED64, some filth is removed, but otherwise no change.

-Is the N64 just borked? I mean I remember getting it when I was like 11 years old in the year 2000 or so... It is old, but then again I have older consoles (NES, Genesis/MD, and SNES) that work just fine...but the N64 is kept downstairs out of my room, so maybe somebody knocked it down when I wasn't looking or something

So I went into the basement dug out StarFox 64 and put that in, after several tries the "1997 Nintendo" screen pops up. At this point I know that the SD Card, N64, Power, TV, S-Video cables, expansion pak, are not the problem.....it comes down to the ED64.

So I tried once more, jiggled the power switch and pressed reset a few times...and predictably that didn't help at all.

Is there anything I can do? It doesn't make any sense to me, why would changing SD cards cause it to stop working like that

Other than trying to find a cheap replacement, is there anything else I can do? Are there any button combinations that I can press while it's booting...or a debug menu or something? Am I overlooking something obvious?

****

I opened it up. (Thanks for not using those blasted Nintendo security screws) There isn't anything obviously wrong with the board (no scorch marks or broken traces). But there is some more info.

-09.05.2011, obviously a date...but that could be September 5 or 9th of May.....you know with date formats it's hard to tell, whatever.-The Board is v1.01, -The CIC is "NUS-6102A"

I also noticed the pieces of felt, that's a nice touch.

*****

You know the saying, you never know what you had until it's gone, well. It was an amazing little device. Let my brother and I play some excellent games that we otherwise never would have played. When you think about it the N64 is somewhat endangered when it comes to playing games on real hardware. It doesn't have the same numbers or the benefit of (at least somewhat) accurate emulation that other consoles have.

*******

I deleted everything on the SD Card and formatted it. Inside is the ED64 folder with the OS64.v64 file inside. Also in that folder is a "SAVES" folder, it has one save file for Mario 64.

Other than the ED64 folder is one ROM file. Mario 64.

My reasoning is that since this game is pretty much the ur example of N64 games it should be a good test. So there is absolutely nothing on this SD card other than the ED64 folder and the SM64 ROM

....No dice, still won't work. Weird...

I put all the ROMs I had into a folder in case i ever get an ED64 again.

Okay, so like I don't usually ask for help unless I'm really stumped, so hear me out 'kay?

I recently got the urge for protos, and I got the cracked 40 winks, I'm in the US so I'm NTSC, 60hz, 110v etc, no RGB just S Video, anyway, 40 winks is PAL... so that might be the reason it doesn't work right, see I start it and the picture skips to the point that its unplayable.

Now, it is in color and audio works, but it skips like someone gave my N64 crack (not a cracked rom lol) anyway so naturally I got a clean copy of the proto and got the ips from rhdn and applied it myself, same result.

Okay, I also only have v1 ED64, it has the latest firmware and updates available for it.